


spin darkness like straw (spin it into gold)

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, archie being abused by grundy refs, i just really liked the title, ive been in a rut so i wrote something stupid in all lowercase to get out of it, jughead being sad as hell, lapslock, nothing happens in this story, self indulgent scraps of nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: sometimes lying on archie’s floor late at night early autumn, jughead could almost believe they were going to make it out of this town alive.





	spin darkness like straw (spin it into gold)

sometimes lying on archie’s floor late at night early autumn, jughead could almost believe they were going to make it out of this town alive.

it wasn’t something he let himself believe a lot because objectively most of the time it didn’t feel true -- not that he was going to  _ die, _ he wasn’t going to die, he wouldn’t let himself, but god, most of the time he looked to the future and it seemed impossible, inscrutable, immeasurable. nothing felt certain, and as the world grew more and more unsteady, as the lines between his jagged nightmares and the words spilling onto his laptop and the pounding broken world around him blurred and zig-zagged and collapsed. nothing felt certain, and everything fell down like dominoes: mom, jellybean, dad, archie, jason blossom. everyone left.

and then some people came back. archie came back, his eyes wide and haunted and his hands shaking and not looking any of his lady teachers in the eye. grundy had hurt him in ways it took a little while to catch up with, but it had caught up with him, and it hurt, watching him realize how screwed up the entire awful, broken, abusive, illegal situation had been. with archie in his life came again fred andrews, arm around jug securely, lying easily to the sheriff about his whereabouts and it made him ache. betty flooded into his life in a way she never had been before and it was something new, something bright, something easy; high ponytails and quiet breakfasts and a  _ girlfriend,  _

nothing had ever been that easy before -- nothing had ever been as easy as being with betty felt. the world spun and shattered around him and he was certain that it wouldn’t last, certain that it couldn’t last, and it was like he was watching himself from very far away watching himself take the world apart with his own hands sometimes, but other times --

other times god  _ damn  _ he felt in a way that he shouldn’t that he had no right to no claim to no want to but sometimes he felt so achingly  _ hopeful, _ and where had hope ever gotten him, but he felt it all the same -- that they would survive it -

that archie would wake up without turning over all the worst days in his head, go to school without ghosts sketched all over his face

that betty would crawl out from under the crushing thumb of alice cooper,

that veronica, he didn’t really know what veronica worried about,

that fred and FP would be friends again, friends like they were kids, that the wrinkles in his dad’s face would relax into smiles and that (that mom and jellybean would come home) but he didn’t let himself think that. he didn’t let himself go that far. jughead was fifteen years old and he knew how life worked; he knew for every piece of happiness, there was a debt of darkness to be paid. he knew that for every inkling of hope, there was a debt of disappointment and despair to be felt. it was fine. the world usually balanced out but for some of them, for people who were born on the wrong side of town, for people who didn’t have anything to their name anymore but a busted up old laptop, you had to pay more. always, always inherited debt. every kind of it.

he wrote and wrote and wrote and pretended it made a difference. he felt his father’s grief collapse upon him. 

fred andrews took him in. god bless fred andrews.

he started praying before sleeping again, something so humiliating he couldn’t even do it out loud, because who the hell was he praying to? so he kept it inside his head, kept it close, didn’t keep it specific.  _ if you’re listening, if you’re out there, help me. keep my dad out of jail. help me. help us. help us. _

but he kissed betty behind the bleachers and he laughed with archie over burgers and drank coffee on quiet mornings with fred and he prayed in the middle of the night and sometimes he could feel like he really did exist.

\--

“jug, are you awake?”

archie’s voice was small through the darkness. jughead rolled onto his back, groggy and halfway out of a dream, all red and black and shouting voices and jellybean too far out of reach.

but it had only been half a dream. half of it, he’d just been thinking about.

“yeah,” jughead said. “yeah, i’m awake. are you okay?”

archie was quiet for awhile. jughead waited, counting the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling. archie thought he was so cool, jughead reflected, but he could’ve scraped those stars off at anytime. but he hadn’t, leaving them up. jughead wondered if he remembered the day they put them up: him, betty, and archie, hopping up and down on his bed and laughing hysterically before realizing they would be better served with tall ladders. fred coming in and taking turns lifting them up, mary getting them hot chocolate made with boiled water, archie was lactose intolerant. jughead liked the metallic taste.

he ached for childhood. he waited for archie to speak.

“jug, i - ” archie swallowed hard. “i’m really sorry. you know that, right?”

“i know.”

“i’m sorry i wasn’t there. you were, you were homeless, all your own, and i was.. i was just - ”

“there was a lot going on,” jughead reminded him.

“i was still a shit friend. it doesn’t excuse it.”

jughead rolled onto his stomach. “no,” he said. “not really. but i forgive you, arch.” he didn’t want to be his father. it made him so damn sad. most things these days made him angry or hollow or exhausted but not wanting to be like his dad, his hero, anymore, that just made him sad, the childhood sad of closed doors and rubbish bins overflowing with empty beer bottles.

he didn’t want to be his father, and he didn’t really know what the connection was, but he thought that forgiving archie would keep him safe from that. keep him protected. keep him out of jail, out of a gang, but could one act of forgiveness balance out the universe? his genes weren’t on his side. socioeconomic policy wasn’t on his side.

jughead missed his dad so much.

“i should’ve been stronger,” said archie. “i should’ve known it was wrong, i should’ve - ”

“arch. it’s okay.” they didn’t feel quite connected to reality, lying there in the dark, the glowing yellow stars in careful patterns. betty had tried to make a big B in the middle but it had veered off and looked instead like two round hearts. only betty could make a mistake into something even prettier. “it wasn’t your fault. it could never be your fault, okay? you have to believe that.”

archie exhaled. “i shouldn’t have kept you waiting at pop’s.”

“okay - so much has happened since then anyway, you know? it feels like a long time 

ago.”

“it wasn’t that long ago.”

“i know.”

“i shouldn’t have kept you waiting at pop’s.”  
  
“it happened,” said jughead. “it’s okay.”  
  
they were quiet again then.

“you’re too nice, jug.”  
  
jughead snorted. “me? nice? that’s one thing i’ve never been accused of.”

“you take good care of everyone.” archie was falling back asleep; jughead suspected he had been mostly asleep for the majority of this conversation. “even when people don’t take care back.”

there was cool air coming in through the window. jughead felt an inexplicable sense of peace.

“remember putting the stars up, with betty?”

he hadn’t really expected a response; he thought archie was too close to sleep for nostalgia, and wouldn’t want to indulge anyway. but archie always surprised him. “of course. and mom made hot chocolate with water.. that was nice of you guys, to drink it without milk.”

jughead smiled. “i liked it better that way anyway.”

archie’s breathing grew even, somber. jughead rolled back onto his back and directed prayers to no one, but they were different tonight.

_ thank you, whoever put archie in my life. and betty, and fred, and my dad. _

he missed his dad so much.

_ thank you, whoever put archie in my life, and betty, and fred, and my dad. _

he missed his mom. he missed jellybean.

so so so many things were wrong and bad and broken but he forgave archie and archie and him were friends again and tomorrow betty would meet them at the door and they’d walk to school together like when they were kids, jughead interlacing his fingers with hers when archie wasn’t looking ‘cause it was still kind of embarrassing, the whole thing. so so so many things were wrong and bad and broken but jughead lay on archie’s floor and felt like he might just survive. felt like the universe could learn from their example. felt they would all get out of this town alive, driving into the sunset with the radio blasting.

 

end

**Author's Note:**

> this is a pile of garbage please comment and validate me


End file.
